FAQs

by Carol Norris and Django Zeaman1. Who is Take Back the Co-op?We are a group of La Montañita member-owners who are working to preserve and strengthen the core cooperative values at our Co-op. We have a nine person organizing team (Elisa Boyles, Patrick Boyles, Susan Waters, Jay Bunker, Chad Jones, Brinda Maira, Carol Norris, Dorothy Finnigan, and Django Zeaman) who have been working on this since April of 2016. We also have over 500 shoppers and member-owners who have signed up as supporters and we anticipate many more as people learn what has happened.

In addition, we have had tremendous help from the workers, suppliers, farmers, member-owners, and even former board members. Many of them began working on this months before we knew anything was wrong and without their support and insight we wouldn't be here.

We have also endorsed 7 candidates for the regular board election this November: Elise Wheeler, James Glover, Marissa Joe, Ian Colburn, Silda Mason, Chad Jones, and Django Zeaman. We'll be endorsing these same 7 candidates at the Special Membership Meeting, and we are looking for two more people who share our values (there are 9 total seats on the board). Please contact us if you would like to run for the board and would like our endorsement.

2. What do you stand for?Our platform is comprised of three parts:​Transparency and Democratic Member Control

Full financial disclosure to member-owners including legal fees, consulting fees, and an ongoing profit/loss breakdown by store. Member-owners can't make good decisions unless we are well informed.

​More opportunities for direct democracy so that member-owners vote on major Co-op decisions. For too long, a small handful of people have made major decisions for our Co-op and that kind of structure is always going to be susceptible to corruption.

Focus on organic, local, and sustainable products

Removing the "Clean Fifteen" and conventional produce from our stores.

Creating a comprehensive Food and Products Manual for the entire store which is based on our values of ecologically sound practices that protect the planet, farm workers, and everyone involved in our food chain. The Food and Products Manual must be protected and not easily changed based on the whims of a GM or pressure from a national corporation attempting to profit through our stores.

Worker rights

Livable wages and benefits for the workers in our stores.

A safe place to work, where workers are not subjected to threats, intimidation, and retaliation. ​Greater participation in decision-making.

Fair labor practices for all suppliers, distributors, and farmers.

3. Why hold a Special Membership Meeting, instead of just electing people through the normal election this November?Other co-ops have tried that approach and at minimum it would take two years to get a majority on the board, plus they have seen elected board members disqualified on technicalities. Basically, the CDS-influenced board members do everything they can to retain control and the board becomes a battlezone. Meanwhile, huge sums of money are lost, valued workers leave, and irreparable damage is done to the image of the co-op.

In short, we can’t wait. It’s too costly. We need to remove the current board and elect an entirely new board untainted by CDS Consulting.

4. Are you saying that the board is behind this and they’re the “bad people” who did this to the Co-op?No, we’re not. To our knowledge, the current board members are not “bad people.” They have been led astray and "trained" by a consulting group who is very successful at this.

​CDS has "trained" and manipulated boards across the country. They can take good people with good intentions and through "training" they can pervert those intentions into something very harmful for a co-op, but very good for their consulting group and for a company like UNFI (United Natural Foods, Inc.).That said, board members do bear a responsibility for their actions and inactions. And some of our past board members have seen through the charade of CDS Consulting. Unfortunately, the ones who see the disconnect between CDS and the actual values of a co-op are often so frustrated and confused that they leave the board rather than try to fight it on their own.Signing the petition and voting to remove the current board members is not an indictment of them, it’s an indictment of CDS Consulting and a recognition that we have to start with a clean board untarnished by their "training." Sadly, the indoctrination into the CDS/NCG (National Co+op Grocers) way of viewing things is so overwhelming that it is often very difficult for people to see the water they are swimming in. CDS isolates people so that the only information they hear comes from CDS-approved sources. After a few years, anything else sounds heretical.5. I thought this was just about the “Clean Fifteen” and conventional produce.So did we. We had no idea we would stumble upon something this pervasive. Our group was started because of the introduction of the “Clean Fifteen” produce into our Co-op despite the objection of an overwhelming number of member-owners. At the time, we thought it was just an honest disagreement about one decision.

It wasn’t until we tried to communicate with the board that we started to notice that something was really off. Their behavior was so strange that we started doing research and contacting other co-ops to see if they had similar experiences. That's when we found the pioneering research done by Mimi Yahn, which led us to the co-op in New York who had taken back their co-op, which led us to similar efforts at other co-ops.

Every co-op we talked to asked the same thing: “Is your board acting strange? Have they stopped responding to member-owners? Did they introduce a drastic change counter to the values of the co-op? Are they telling you they know best and holding 'informational sessions' where they don’t actually answer questions, they just pretend to listen?” Yes, yes, yes, and yes.

Interestingly, the change that woke up member-owners at each co-op varied greatly: a significant change in bylaws, a shift in products, a new expansion, or poor treatment of workers. But the defensiveness of the board, the bunker mentality where member-owners were seen as the enemy, and the almost religious-like zealotry for this way of doing things was true at every single co-op. That, and they were all being advised by CDS Consulting.

We now look back at the "Clean Fifteen" and realize that it was the tip of the iceberg. It’s still a very important issue and that’s why we are asking member-owners to vote on it at the Special Membership Meeting.

But we now realize that no meaningful change will occur at our Co-op unless we change the system and some of the people in leadership roles. If the “Clean Fifteen” were taken out of the stores tomorrow, we would still move forward with our petition calling for a vote on removing board members.

6. Do you think that board members and/or the GM are receiving any gifts, promises of jobs, or financial remuneration from CDS, UNFI, or other food distributors?We genuinely don’t know, but it is certainly one of the things we will be looking into when we conduct our financial investigation.We spoke with another co-op who said the behavior of their board and senior leadership (people they had known for decades) was so bizarre that they realized they had to ask this question. We have to ask this question as well.7. They just introduced Policy Governance at my church/school board/non-profit – are you saying it’s a bad model for everyone?Not necessarily. It could be that the implementation of it by CDS Consulting is the problem. However, you can find lots of other people complaining about the model in situations that have nothing to do with CDS Consulting or a food co-op.

It's a system that gives a GM or CEO a tremendous amount of power. And that often means it’s a ticking time bomb that goes off when the wrong GM or CEO is hired.

8. Is the problem the board, the GM, or CDS Consulting?All 3; they’re completely intertwined at this point.

CDS Consulting has "trained" our board for years. CDS vetted GM candidates and may have had a significant hand in hiring our current GM. And because of the way the board has been "trained," they are allowing the GM to run free and do whatever he wants; even if it’s counter to our mission, a violation of federal labor law, and hurting our finances, our workers, and our relationship with our member-owners and shoppers.In some ways, you could say we are lucky. If things hadn't gotten so bad at our Co-op, we probably wouldn’t have noticed. It’s been so over-the-top, so counter to the values of member-owners, and so many people have stepped forward that we finally woke up and organized.We heard another co-op say that CDS is basically counting on us to be the "Kumbaya" types. That we’ll be afraid of confrontation and not hold them or the board members accountable. We think they’ve severely misjudged co-op member-owners.9. Isn’t the “New Normal” true though? It’s possible to buy organic food and products everywhere now, not just at the Co-op.Yes, it is true that a shopper can now buy many organic products at other stores. But that doesn’t mean that the “New Normal” caused our stores to suffer financially.Our Co-op is not doing as well financially because we opened a new location in 2013 while being advised by CDS.

In fact, the "New Normal" is great news for our Co-op. It means that the demand for organic and sustainable products is growing among American consumers. We have a great reputation as leaders in organic and ethically sourced food and we should remain leaders as the market moves toward us.

10. What's with all the Field Day brand products showing up in the Co-op recently?Field Day is owned by UNFI. It wasn't enough that we sell products distributed by UNFI, now our Co-op is selling more and more products owned by UNFI.

11. Are you always against expansion or buying products from UNFI ?No. Remodeling an existing store or opening a new store could be in the best interest of our Co-op. Same with purchasing from UNFI.

But we can't have an honest discussion about those kinds of decisions when CDS Consulting is "training" our board every month and vetting our GM candidates. CDS has financial incentives to always push us to expand and they have ties to UNFI (personal and possibly financial). It's like asking the coyote where to build the chicken coop and how high to make the fence. You'll get an answer but it doesn't have anything to do with what's best for the chickens.

It's only after we have removed the current board members and ceased all ties with CDS Consulting that we can make good decisions for our Co-op. Maybe that means opening a new store in the future, maybe it means closing a store, maybe it means keeping the stores that we have. Same goes for buying from UNFI. If they have the products we want at the right prices then we'll buy from them, otherwise we won't. It has to be what's in the best interest of La Montañita Co-op as a whole, not what's in the best interest of UNFI, CDS Consulting, NCG, or the current General Manager.

12. I don't see "Clean Fifteen" signs in the Co-op any more. What happened?They very recently removed those signs and are selling conventional produce without the "Clean Fifteen" label. This allows them to sell any conventional produce, whether it is on the "Clean Fifteen" list or not, which may have been their plan all along. In other words, things are about to get even worse.

13. Is it true that Take Back the Co-op is a small group of outsiders from Santa Fe? Do they want to close all the Albuquerque stores and the distribution center and fire everyone?We've heard variations on this question recently (apparently this is what the GM has been telling workers).

In short, the answer is no.

- Please look at our endorsed candidates for the board. Five of them are from Albuquerque, two are from Santa Fe. One of them is a lifetime member of La Montañita who was a member of the original Osha co-op in the 70s. Two of them used to work in the stores in Albuquerque.

- We had a planning session earlier this week for our weekend events. A majority of the participants were from Albuquerque and most of our events this weekend are in Albuquerque.

- We have almost 1,000 signatures at the moment and a majority of them are from people who live in Albuquerque, with a good number from Santa Fe and other cities in NM too.

- We've never discussed closing the distribution center and honestly don't know where that came from. The distribution center has to be evaluated in terms of it's financial performance, like any other part of our La Montañita system, but it also has significant value to the greater New Mexico community.

We believe the most serious threat to La Montañita jobs is allowing the current leadership at our Co-op to continue. We averaged profits of $649K a year from 2008-2013. In 2014, that dropped to $231K, last year it went down to $142K, and we're hearing that this year we may have a loss of $100K or more. We have to step in now before it gets any worse.

Also, we notice that the GM continues to use divisiveness. He's trying to pit workers against member-owners, Albuquerque against Santa Fe, and one store against another. These are the same tactics that workers reported in "Inside the Co-op."

14. Are you planning to close the Westside store?If you look at our petition, which sets the agenda for the Special Membership Meeting, you'll see that closing the Westside store isn't one of the proposals. We feel that until we deal with the leadership problems at our Co-op and fire CDS Consulting, it's impossible to have an honest conversation about the Westside store.

Depending on how members vote at the Special Membership Meeting, we will carry out the proposals that pass and then we plan to look at the Westside store and share that information openly with member-owners and workers.

One of the core parts of our platform is Transparency and Democratic Member Control. The two go hand-in-hand. Member-owners have to be better informed about their business in order to be able to make good decisions. We think that major decisions should go to the membership for a democratic vote and closing or opening a store certainly qualifies as major.

15. What do you make of the GM's response to Take Back the Co-op?The GM is very skilled at distracting and diverting people. Notice all the things he doesn't address:

Profit. He goes on at length about revenue but doesn't mention profit. As one worker put it: "If the Co-op's goal is simply to increase revenue, while losing profits, anyone could have done that before." That seems to be exactly what is happening.

The high salaries and bonuses paid to him and the people he brought in from out-of-state to fill management positions. All while our Co-op is experiencing the worst financial loss in over a decade.

The NLRB finding that our Co-op had retaliated against unionized workers on four different charges.

The culture of fear and intimidation and how workers are currently treated.

The loss of valued workers with decades of experience.

Severing ties with Veritable Vegetable in favor of getting produce from a trucking company with whom the GM has personal ties.

The more than a dozen co-ops around the country who have already contacted us to report that they are experiencing the same problems: serious financial losses, an unresponsive board, workers being treated poorly, a serious drop in food quality, and a GM given too much power and abusing it. And each of these co-ops are being advised by CDS Consulting.

The co-op in Albany, NY (Honest Weight), who successfully held a Special Membership Meeting, removed their board, elected a new board, and got their co-op operating profitably again in less than a year.